Behavior is the preferred spelling in American English. Behaviour is preferred everywhere else. Other than the spelling, there is no difference between the two words. The spelling distinction extends to all derivatives, including behaviors—behaviours, behavioral—behavioural, and behaviorally—behaviourally.
Examples
For example, these American publications use behavior:
His behavior has cost him a seat in Congress. [Miami Herald]
When the frontal lobes are compromised, people become disinhibited, and startling behaviors can emerge. [The Atlantic]
The average behavioral differences between large samples of moms and dads are small, in statistical terms. [Wall Street Journal]
And these non-U.S. publications prefer behaviour:
Their crew was one of six boats that was punished by officials for bad behaviour during the 200-year-old competition. [Telegraph]
Road bullying is driver behaviour which intimidates other road users. [Sydney Morning Herald]
That’s a specific behavioural tick, and, what’s more, not a condition generally described as a nuisance. [National Post]
Leaving out the ‘U’ spellings in American English make no sense. ‘our’ has a certain pronunciation and they take it away from the word, and therefore it doesn’t make sense at all. Do they spell ‘flour’ as ‘flor’? No, didn’t think so. It’s such a random language and breaks every rule of the English language.
Wow American English is balls.
Yih that’s orright ey
Thank you, grammarist! As a psychologist I have to know the difference between these 2 words.
thanku very much!!!!
All of the words in the title of this article should be capitalized, and I’m only 10.
Hey kid, I’m 11, and when you spend more time online, you learn that not everybody uses perfect capitalization.
I’m older than 10 and I can tell you that they shouldn’t. 10yrs old rules are meant to be broken. Like Father Christmas. You’ll understand eventually.
Behaviour Analysts would argue that it is ‘Behaviour’ is a collective term so it both singular and plural. There is no such word as ‘behaviours’.
Walking at night is one behaviour, drinking to excess is another behaviour, shouting incoherently is a third behaviour. Fill the blank: “These _________ when found together indicate an individual may be having some difficulty with their lifestyle.”
We would still say ‘behaviour/types of behaviour/episodes of behaviour’.
Yeah but no one else does, everyone else would refer to those as behaviours
Behaviour Analysts do and their area of expertise is the science of behaviour. I’d go with the experts on this one.
And scientists use the word theory to mean something completely different to the everyday context.
Not exactly a difficult concept that words have different meanings in different contexts